MichelleBentham
Isaiah 61:1-3 tells us that Jesus came to bind up the brokenhearted, provide recovery of sight to the blind, freedom for captives and release for prisoners.
These very people file into the churches that dot the landscape across our country and around our world. They walk in with a pasted on smile, a fear of being exposed mingled with a fear of what it is that makes them so broken.
When they look in the mirror they do not see themselves reflected as Christ’s image on this earth, but instead see slivers of a being they do not even recognize as themselves. It reminds me of what the book of James talks about:
“he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.”~James 1:8 (NKJV)
“For if anyone only listens to the Word without obeying it and being a doer of it, he is like a man who looks carefully at his [own] natural face in a mirror; For he thoughtfully observes himself, and then goes off and promptly forgets what he was like. “~ James 1:23-24 (AMP)
Every day there are people who call my line at work looking for help. They are deeply wounded people with remarkable strength, but when they look into their shattered mirror they don’t see a love letter from God – they see the hatred of this world marked out in scars on their souls.
Broken people, shattered and blinded by the cruelties of life, a fallen existence and the consequences of evil perpetrated by the hands of men. They are trying to get better, but feel doomed to a life of turmoil, regret, fear and torment. They call and they ask, “Can anyone offer me hope?”
“Can God help me?”
Some find healing after years of both professional counseling and ministry within the church, but many feel that they will never be completely free of the darkness of their past. Even after receiving a measure of healing their reflection is still shattered. Their identity stolen by abuse and pain.
Abuse and pain our society and world often minimize or deny exist.
Where do people who suffer horrible abuse go for help?
I pray that God would provide a place where the shattered and maimed souls of this world could come and receive intensive care without depleting their financial resources. A place where Jesus is found faithful to Heal, Restore, Deliver, Set Free as well as save. Where they go from being shattered to restored completely back to the original identity that God created them to live out of accepting finally that their past does not determine their future and the cruelty of others does not show their personal value and beauty before God.
That they would be as Paul writes:
“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”~Romans 12:1-2 (NKJV)
And finally, one day they look in the mirror and see not the shattered image of a used up life, but instead the glorious image of Christ reflected in His Bride.
“But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”~2 Corinthians 3:18 (NKJV)
Would you join me as I pray for an answer for those shattered lives that so desperately long to find themselves whole, healed and set free?
